Midwest Federation of American Syrian & Lebanese Clubs convention 2019 The conference will be held in Chicago at the Swissôtel Chicago, 323 E Upper Wacker Dr, Chicago, Illinois 60601 from July 4 through July 7, 2019....

About Our Website

Palestinians salute Black Lives Matter movement

Palestinians Salute the Movement for Black Lives Emphasizing Common Struggle against Racial Oppression

Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) responds to Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) policy platform: “We pledge to firmly and consistently stand in solidarity with our black sisters and brothers in the United States and around the world by supporting the demands and policy proposals in this platform.”

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society that leads the global BDS movement, endorses the inspiring and liberating policy platform issued last week by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) with concrete policy demands for Black power, freedom and justice. We pledge to firmly and consistently stand in solidarity with our black sisters and brothers in the United States and around the world by supporting the demands and policy proposals in this platform.

The BDS movement is deeply inspired by the US Civil Rights Movement and the many struggles by Blacks and other people of color for racial and economic justice. Your refusal to stay silent in the face of massive and systemic state violence targeting black bodies and your resistance against repression and disenfranchisement in black communities are a source of inspiration to our own struggle against Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.

From Florida to Ferguson to New York to Baltimore to Los Angeles to Minneapolis and beyond the unapologetic cry of “Black Lives Matter!” has shaken the system of racism and white supremacy that allows police to gun down black people with impunity, to cage black people in obscene numbers, and to systematically impoverish and degrade the black community as a whole.

The BNC has been honored to have met in Palestine with multiple solidarity delegations of leaders from Black Lives Matter, the Dream Defenders and other organizations within the Movement for Black Lives and has learned much from these interactions. The 2015 Black for Palestine statement shed a brilliant light on the organic relationship between the US’s domestic racial oppression and its racialized imperial oppression against people of color worldwide while sending a powerful message to all Palestinians about this movement’s commitment to solidarity with Palestinians and all oppressed people around the world.

We cannot thank the Movement for Black Lives enough for the powerful words of solidarity in the invest-divest section of the platform specifically endorsing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) measures against Israel’s occupation and apartheid in line with the 2005 Palestinian civil society call until all Palestinian human rights are respected.

We warmly welcome the Platform’s call for an end to US military aid to Israel and for the billions of dollars in military aid that currently enable Israel’s endless wars of aggression and what the prominent Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls, “incremental genocide” in the “Gaza ghetto,” to be reinvested in education, health, employment, social programs, and the economic uplifting of communities of color in the U.S.

While the fastest growing Jewish group in the US, Jewish Voice for Peace, has endorsed the M4BL Platform in its entirety, predictably, anti-Palestinian groups in the U.S. that work to protect Israel’s regime of colonial oppression by ensuring the unconditional flow of billions in US taxpayers money denounced it loudly. The latter feel that the growing joint struggle between Blacks and Palestinians, which is evolving through sustained and long-term intersectional grassroots efforts among our two communities and supported by progressive Jewish communities, may threaten US support for Israeli apartheid.

This thinly-veiled racism of the “white moderate” reminds us of what Malcolm X once said:

“I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.”

We in the BNC are honored to be listed as a resource in the Platform and will provide whatever support we can to the Movement for Black Lives. We will work with our partners in the U.S. and around the world to ensure stronger ties of solidarity between our movements and to mobilize the Palestine solidarity community in support of actions and policy recommendations of the Movement for Black Lives. We will work against anti-blackness wherever we find it, including within our own movement. And we will continue to say loudly and proudly those three words that in a just world would be completely uncontroversial but in the unjust world we live in have inspired a movement: Black Lives Matter!

Stephen Biko, the South African liberation leader who founded the Black Consciousness Movement wrote, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” This M4BL Platform is an empowering policy platform that shows how to liberate the minds of the oppressed to achieve justice and liberation.

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

"I write about three topics, the Middle East, politics and life in general. I often take my life experiences and offer them in an entertaining way to readers, and I take on the toughest topics like the Israel-Palestine conflict and don't pull any punches about what I feel is fair. But, my priority is always about writing the good story."

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992. Hanania began writing in 1975 when he published The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper which was distributed through 12,500 Middle East food stores in 48 American States (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues for the Arab News in Saudi Arabia as the Special US Correspondent for the Arab News at www.ArabNews.com, the TheArabDailyNews.com, www.TheDailyHookah.com and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has also published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday Newspaper in New York, the Orlando Sentinel Newspapers, and the Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Palestinian, American Arab and Christian, Hanania’s parents originate from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

The managing editor of Suburban Chicagoland Online News website www.SuburbanChicagoland.com, Hanania's columns also appeare in the Southwest News Newspaper Group of 8 newspapers.